Like many obsessions, America’s century-plus love affair with film began wordlessly — and stayed that way for decades.

“In the first 40 years or so of cinema you see that early filmmakers are trying to figure out what they can do in this medium,” said Howie Movshovitz, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Denver and co-founder of the Denver Silent Film Festival. “Once you get into the mid-1910s you see an art form that is fully developed and expressive. When sound and talking came along, a lot of filmmakers thought it was a really stupid idea.”

That may be hard for some film buffs to imagine, but it’s the point of the Denver Silent Film Festival, which celebrates its fifth outing April 29-May 1 at the Alamo Drafthouse Littleton.

The dream-like nature of the Silent Era (about 1894 to 1929) will once again be on display at Movshovitz’s event, which boasts the exacting standards of a fine-art retrospective.

Movshovitz curated the nine films on display this year with David Shepard, a prolific and renowned preservationist who is lending the event 16 and 35 millimeter prints (and projectors) from his personal collection. The slate includes recognizable titles like 1924’s “Peter Pan” and 1925’s “The Phantom of the Opera,” plus lesser-known fare such as 1925’s “The Unholy Three” — all with live music accompaniment.

That last detail isn’t just a selling point for contemporary audiences. It’s something that has given the Denver festival an international identity.

“I got an e-mail from a friend who was at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival in Italy, which is the biggest and best in the world, and he said ‘We’ve been hearing about your music program,’ ” Movshovitz recalled. “Part of that is due to Donald Sosin, who’s the resident composer at the Lincoln Center in New York — and this year’s Career Achievement Award winner for us.”

Sosin flew into Denver earlier this week to work with a group of CU Denver students to compose an original score for the Lon Chaney picture “The Unholy Three,” which they will perform live on Saturday at the Drafthouse.

The 2016 event also includes a tribute to the late William Stanfill, a former director for the festival, and a panel discussion on the massive influence silent films have had on comedy, featuring the work of Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy and others.

“We really haven’t changed the format at all,” Movshovitz said of the festival, which runs on a $30,000 annual budget cobbled together from donations and ticket sales. “We present them properly, which is tricky because of the range of speeds at which they were shot. We reject nostalgia entirely. We show these films because they’re good, period, with no explanation or apology.”

Of course, last year’s showing of D.W. Griffith’s 1915 epic “The Birth of a Nation” — which inflamed racial tensions upon its release and became the centerpiece of a Supreme Court case — required some context, with a panel that included former Denver Post film critic Lisa Kennedy.

“That film was this weird combination of brilliant and reprehensible,” Movshovitz said. “But everything we show is viable art and speaks to the human condition in some way. We just do it without the literal realism of people talking.”

John Wenzel has covered comedy, music, film, books and video games for The Denver Post for more than a decade. As a proud Dayton, Ohio native, his love of Guided by Voices is about equal to his other obsessions, including Peter Jackson's Middle-earth, "Mr. Show" quotes and Onitsuka Tigers.